On Tue, May 23, 2000 at 01:30:11PM -0700, healyzh_at_aracnet.com wrote:
> However, considering how much I've dropped in both stores I've got to agree.
> It totally pisses me off!
Nearly everything about the Fry's checkout process sucks. If you go
to buy computer parts like memory or a hard drive, they have long forms
onscreen to fill out (including name, address etc, but usually they skip
that part). Then they _print_ the form. (This is a computer store,
haven't they heard of a network?) Last time I had to wait several minutes
because the printer kept jamning. So then you walk up front and wait
in another long line. Wait for somebody to hold up a sign. So low-tech.
(I'm sure they must have fun telling new cashiers, "here's your sign".
It would certainly be appropriate.) Half the barcodes don't scan. They
used to use these old fashioned light-pen type scanners but at least
the last time, they'd finally upgraded to the pistol-grip autoscanning
kind.
Then the cashier disappears for several minutes to get your stuff from
the cage. He or she finally reappears, and after adequate payment
hassle, you wait while the receipt printer (which has done nothing in
advance of this moment) prints out two feet of paper, slowly, one line
at a time. Then you go wait in line again at the exit. And get home to
find out your product was already returned once and is missing something
or doesn't work. So you can go stand in line again and shuttle more
paper back and forth and be trapped into buying from them again because
they will only give you store credit because you lost the receipt.
What I would like to see instead, despite the cries of "Big Brother" from
so many people, is a smart card or iButton that has the memory of who you
are and all the ID numbers for all the various stores at which you shop.
You use it when checking out like all the grocery stores are doing with
the "[euphemism to make you feel appreciated] Card"s, but you use the
same one everywhere. Encryption would be involved (the Java-iButton from
Dallas Semiconductor would be perfect for this) so that each store can
only get from your device the information that they put on it in the
first place, as well as a little bit of "public" info like name and
phone number. Somebody could make a killing selling POS systems
to do that. But I guess the customer's convenience is really the last
thing on their minds.
--
_______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud_at_bigfoot.com
(_ | |_) http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud kb7pwd_at_kb7pwd.ampr.org
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Received on Tue May 23 2000 - 16:21:54 BST